A Memoir of Growth and Pain – You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

This memoir by poet Maggie Smith relates the history of her marriage, her divorce, and journey to find some level of peace and acceptance. It is beautifully written, yet at times almost excruciatingly painful to read. She shares just enough of her life so that we have a sketch of the arc of the relationship from its beginning and onward as it unravels, the failed linchpin of that being when she discovers her husband's betrayal, and then its following and complete destruction. 

She writes eloquently of her loving relationship with her two young children, her closeness with her family, and with friends. Preoccupied with motherhood, and with her evolving success as a published writer, she does not recognize how the marriage is deconstructing until much later, when, as the divorce proceeds and is completed, she has the distance to realize how it was coming apart long before she discovered her husband's unfaithfulness.

Smith is respectful enough of her ex-husband in her portrayal, considering that he was the cheater, and once separated from Smith, moved 500 miles away from his young children, so that parenting became even more primarily her responsibility.

Even though I am agewise a peer of Smith's mother, I can recognize my younger self in past relationships that ended unhappily, though I suspect it doesn't matter how old one is in such situations. In those too, the signs were there for Smith as they were for me, though in the midst of things, they went unread. Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.", but that could easily be rephrased to happy marriages or relationships. Happy relationships are not often examined, it is the unhappy ones that plague us with doubt, disappointment, sadness, and anger.

Smith's mother tells her how unexpected the marriage's breakup was to her and the rest of Smith's family. She cites Smith's fortieth birthday, when Smith's husband presented her with a handwritten list of the 40 things he loved about her. Not only has that piece of paper disappeared, but Smith has no memory of it. Some reviewers have expressed disbelief about Smith's forgetting it and its loss, but I understand it – like so many poignant reminders of other times, in her pain she has destroyed it and excised the memory. She mentions in another passage how she now understands why people cut their past significant others out of photos or outright destroy them: of course you do, when the pain is greatest, you try to remove its source, and hold on only to the good pieces of memory.

I found this book by reading a post in "Oldster", a Substack edited by the journalist and editor Sari Botton, and when I went to the library to borrow it, I found it prominently displayed...perhaps a bit of the serendipity in life that Smith mentions in her writing. Who knows? Maggie Smith in "Oldster" 

An Inspiring Life – Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon, by Iris Apfel

This is a revised review, based on a re-read for my latest Substack article, about the inspiration I have found in the life of Iris Apfel:

If you are a fan of style icon and centenarian Iris Apfel, you'll love this book! If you haven't heard of her, then it's the perfect introduction to this extraordinary woman. 

Iris Apfel became something of a celebrity once her personal collection of clothing and accessories was exhibited in 2005 at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Since then, she has been the subject of a documentary film, "Iris", and has sold her "Rara Avis" line on HSN. This engaging book combines her personal recollections and photos along with terrific illustrations and graphics. 

Iris shares some fascinating anecdotes about her professional life (she and her husband ran a successful textile design business), her travels, her style and her viewpoints on a number of topics. It's a fun and appealing read. You may not like or agree with everything she says, but she is her own woman with her own perspective, and since she has passed her 102nd birthday, I believe that more than ever, she retains the right to speak her mind. Viva Iris!

Since this book first came out, Iris was also featured "If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast", a documentary narrated by the late Carl Reiner, who made to 98 himself. She has also been the subject of a picture book, Iris Apfel (Little People, BIG DREAMS, Volume 64), and a Little Golden Book Biography, simply titled Iris Apfel. There are even highly collectible Barbie dolls that celebrates her one-of-a-kind style...hard to find, but out there for dedicated collectors and lovers of the current film. Meanwhile, read and enjoy this book celebrating the indomitable Iris Apfel.

So Tender – Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen by Donia Bijan

This was the most beautiful book...it brought tears to my eyes more than once. The author, Donia Bijan, has written a lyrical memoir that describes her early life with her parents and sisters in Iran, before the Islamic Revolution, their move to the United States, and her complicated quest to become a professional chef, or as her father and she sometimes called it, a cook. It is also the story of her relationship with her parents, primarily her close bond with her mother, who must have been an amazing and formidable woman, and was a loving supporter of Donia's ambition.

Her parents were a dedicated obstetrician (her father), and nurse (her mother) who established and ran a small hospital in Tehran. They had living quarters on the building's grounds, which sounds like an idyllic Eden, though her parents worked long, hard hours caring for their patients, and on top of that, her mother was an extraordinary cook and hostess. Amy (her mother, as she was known in English) was a fervent believer in women's rights and became one of the few female politicians elected to the Iranian legislature during the Shah's reign. Of course, after the Revolution, women were completely oppressed and had the Bijans remained in Iran, she would surely have been executed as an enemy of the new government. Fortunately the family was on vacation in Spain at the time the Shah's government fell, and family members were able to alert them not to return to Iran, but as a result they became exiles.

Her parents had already sent Donia's two older sisters to college in the U.S., and Donia went to high school, then college, in California, this after her parents had immigrated. Her father never adjusted to his new country, was unable to sufficiently master English to take the medical boards, and became angry and bitter. Amy, on the other hand, who had been trained in England, and spoke strong English, was able to study, pass the exams, and become the support for the family. 

The chapters progress through Donia's college years, her training at Cordon Bleu in France, and her apprenticeships at various restaurants throughout that country. When she returned to the United States, settling near her family in San Francisco, she eventually merged her French training, Persian roots and food memories, and American experiences into a restaurant of her own. It is a remarkable, and vivid story of an atypical life. 

As I read, I thought frequently of an Iranian couple who had been my ESL students. They too left their home after the Shah was deposed, and lost much of their family's property and assets to the revolutionaries. Despite the pain they might have felt, they were so positive (at least outwardly) and thoughtful. I remember the little tubs of halvah and other treats they brought me, and I have kept a gift  bottle of rosewater in my pantry closet, which always brings them to mind each time I see it.

I can not praise Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen enough. It is one of the best books I have read over the past few years, and certainly one of the most moving.

As a bonus, there are some wonderful recipes included, though this is in no way a cookbook. The recipes feel more like a gift. I expect to try a few when I can. 

An Italian Wife by Ann Hood

From my Goodreads review:

Started strong, with an introduction to the central character and matriarch of the family, Josephine. We meet her as a young girl in Italy who is unhappily wed in an arranged marriage, left behind, and then sent-for several years later by her husband, who has gone to America to improve his chances, and settled in Providence, RI.

The structure of the book is very interesting... as the all the characters are linked by their family connections, yet each one is distinct. This is not a family saga that starts out with poverty and ends as an American success story. There are a lot of dark tales here, and this is not the comforting read about the Italian-American experience that you might find from other authors. Still, it is compelling and explores themes of loyalty, sexuality, grief and anger through original characters. I'll be looking at some other works by Ann Hood – I'd like to get to know her better.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/12270027-joan">View all my reviews</a>

A Valentine to Another Time: At the Strangers' Gate: Arrivals in New York by Adam Gopnik

Just finished listening to Adam Gopnik read his tender and nostalgic memoir of his young adult years in New York with his wife, Martha. I was very taken with his story, as we are roughly the same age and arrived in the city at nearly the same time, Gopnik in fall, 1980 and me in early 1979. Gopnik is a native of Philadelphia, as am I, though his family relocated to Montreal sometime during his formative years. He has done a wonderful job of capturing 1980s New York life as it was for the young, ambitious, artistic and broke.

The couple first lived in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, about 50 blocks due north of where I lived in Murray Hill/Kip's Bay. I spent many hours in their neighborhood, which he lovingly describes as it was in those days, full of German and Middle European restaurants... the Ideal, the Kleine Konditorei, to mention just two of the best-known, small shops including second-hand and thrift stores, and many older people who were beginning to die off. Rents there and in my own far-East neighborhood were still low.

Gopnik and his wife had no money and first lived in a tiny room, but they made their ways and their marks. Gopnik ultimately became a writer for the New Yorker, an aspiration of many, achieved by very, very few and Martha worked as a film editor. Along the way, they moved to a not-very-glamorous Soho loft (before that neighborhood became the province of the very rich), and met a number of well-known artists, writers and others (I did not share this accomplishment with them, I'm sorry to say).

I love Gopnik's stories about the tenor of the city, the people he met, and the work he did before and during his time at the New Yorker. There is a deep, but sweet-flavored well of nostalgia here for a city that has ceased to exist as he and I knew it, and it was wonderful to drink it up and make a visit to those lost places.

I recommend this book for all New Yorkers past and present (and anyone who loves the city), especially those of a certain age, who knew the city as it was when we were young.

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